Why cardinal cannot win in communion row

The recent debate about intercommunion has been framed as if the question were whether Cardinal Connell has the right to tell the Church of Ireland how to order its internal affairs. Put that way, the answer, obviously, is No. However, if we frame it to ask if he has the right to express hurt that another Christian Church issues an invitation which involves Catholics being out of step with the teaching of their own church, the debate looks rather different.

Either way, he cannot win. The hurt of a conservative Catholic cardinal will garner much less sympathy than the hurt feelings of the Church of Ireland. There are historic reasons for that, including the dominance which the Roman Catholic Church enjoyed for a long time and sometimes abused. There is also a perception among the media that the Protestant churches, particularly the Church of Ireland, are more in tune with a vaguely liberal ethos. The evidence which emerges occasionally of staunch members of the Church of Ireland who are, say, vehemently anti-abortion, is ignored, because it upsets the neat stereotyping.

For the Roman Catholic Church to be accused of intolerant treading on other churches' sensibilities is par for the course. To even suggest that there might be elements of that within Southern Protestant churches is unthinkable.

There is another way to frame the debate. Why are so many Catholics completely unengaged by the theological issues about which Cardinal Connell feels so passionately? Or, why would so many Catholics have grave difficulty in explaining their own church's beliefs about the Eucharist, much less explaining what the Church of Ireland believes?

Not that the second part of that question is straightforward. There are great differences within the Church of Ireland as to the significance of the Lord's Table. In general, the Church of Ireland tends to be low church rather than high, that is, closer in practice and belief to other Protestant traditions than to the Roman Catholic Church. Yet the Church of Ireland is proud that it can accommodate vast differences of opinion. When a Church of Ireland bishop speaks, he speaks for himself and for nobody else. So asking whether one is in agreement with the Church of Ireland perspective on the Eucharist is not as simple as it sounds.

However, back to Catholics. For many of them, inter-church communion is more about courtesy than doctrine. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in Christ Church, do as the Church of Ireland does. Certainly, there are many Catholics with a well-thought-out and nuanced position on the Eucharist. For example, the President, Mrs McAleese, with her longterm engagement with, and interest in, church affairs, would obviously fall into that category, as would others. Yet much of the support for her decision to take communion in a Church of Ireland church stemmed not from this small number of the theologically literate, but from people who could not see what all the fuss was about, anyhow.

IT IS this latter group of Catholics who should be giving Cardinal Connell pause. A generation or two ago, it would have been unthinkable that Catholics would be unable to see any substantive difference between the teaching of their church on the Eucharist and that of any other church. It is all part of what Cardinal Danneels of Belgium called the "deforestation of Christian memory".

The Roman Catholic Church would say its attitude to intercommunion is firmly based on a desire for unity, but that intercommunion is a goal rather than part of the journey. However, it singularly fails to communicate that reasoning, and so the teaching looks like an arbitrary bit of bigotry.

Some are impatient with the idea that core beliefs are significant. Why not all just get on with each other? Yet, to say that doctrine does not matter, that what is important is to act in love, may well be simplistic. Take a couple from very distinct cultures who decide to marry and who brush aside their cultural differences on the grounds that love will conquer all. At first it will, but when children come along, when different attitudes to independence surface, then the trouble begins. Love is very important - but just as important is to know who you are, who the other person is, and to relate to each other from that knowledge.

One would be very tempted to ask the politicians who have commented on this debate why Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour do not amalgamate. Very little appears to divide them ideologically, but anybody with sense knows it will not happen. Yet the churches are supposed to set aside centuries of division as if that is irrelevant.

Suppose we had intercommunion between the Christian churches in the morning. Then when somebody dies, a Catholic assumes a Mass card is an appropriate offering, only to discover that while the Church of Ireland prays for the dead, it does not believe that offering a communion service is an appropriate way to do so. The Church of Ireland sees the communion of saints in a different way to the Roman Catholic understanding of the relationship between the living and the dead. Intercommunion in that instance would mask difference, not work with it.

Nor are the divisions just between Roman Catholics and everybody else. The various Protestant traditions have deeprooted problems with each other, too, to the extent that some traditions find it difficult even to share prayer. Do you plaster over the differences, or do you admit them, admit that they are painful, and work with them? Surely our experience with the Northern Ireland peace process should show us that if you attempt to fudge, you actually delay progress.

As a church, the Roman Catholic Church is engaged in no fewer than 14 bilateral dialogues with other churches. Great progress is being made, but little of that is percolating through to the ordinary faithful, who are often impatient with this painstaking progress and want unity yesterday. If they care at all. While hopeful that unity will eventually be achieved, one wonders if many Roman Catholics doubt that they have anything worth sharing.

bobrien@irish-times.ie